Excess Child Mortality Among Ex-Untouchables and Indigenous People in India

Excess Child Mortality among Ex-Untouchables and Indigenous People in India

Bali Ram, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario and Western University, London, Ontario (bram42@yahoo.com)

Abhishek Singh, Inetrnational Institute for Population Sciences, Mumbai, India (a_singh18@rediffmail.com)

Awdhesh Yadav, Public Health Foundation of India, Gurugram, India (awdhesh.stat.gmail.com)

That India’s ex-untouchables and indigenous people have been oppressed, disadvantaged and discriminated in social and economic spheres of life for centuries is well documented. Although discrimination based on caste has been prohibited, untouchability has been legally abolished and people belonging to certain lower castes and tribes have been provided special status and privileges in certain sectors such as education and employment, there is ample evidence that most people belonging to these groups still lag behind those from “upper/forward castes” on almost all social indicators. One such indicator is child mortality, which is the focus of this study. Unlike infant mortality which is influenced by “endogenous” conditions associated with biological and genetic factors and inadequate sanitation and hygiene conditions leading to severe infections in the first few months of life, child mortality is caused often by “exogenous” conditions that arise when the child after having survived the most vulnerable phase of lifehas moved into a relatively healthy stage of life. Thus, child mortality not only reflects the conditions associated with quality and access to medical care and public health practices, but also social and health inequality in a caste-ridden society such as India. The major objective of this paper is to examine the reasons why children of ex-untouchable and indigenous groups are at a significantly increased risk of dying, compared with those belonging to forward castes. We do so by analyzing micro-data on child mortality obtained from the second (1998-99), third (2005-06) and possibly fourth (2014-15) cycles of India’s National Family Health Survey.